Third Time Lucky
by idioticonion
Summary: Robin really just wants to have sex with Barney again. This is AU after Season 4 up to Ep 10 "The Fight"
1. Chapter 1

Third time lucky

She kind of likes the way Barney's lip curls when he comes.

Trouble is, now Robin's seen it, every time he does that expression, even fleetingly, it reminds her of how much sex she's not getting.

And she kind of hates that he's ruined her plans twice in a row. It's really irritating. Now she has to find another really good excuse to sleep with him. After all, it's Barney. It will have to be a _damn_ good excuse for it to over-ride the normal, human disgust that any right-thinking girl would feel at the thought of having sex with the king of all the sewer rats. So, she strategises…

**Mission:** To have more guilt-free sex with Barney Stinson.

Plan A: _Get drunk at Ted's wedding and "conveniently" forget to book a room. _

Plausibility: _Perfect. She'd just lost her job, just argued with Ted and had a whole bottle of great scotch in her purse to share with Barney. It wasn't her fault that he was such a dog that she'd caught him mid-hookup. How could she have forgotten that was what texting was for? She blamed the jet lag._

Result: _Busted._

Plan B: _Make the excuse that, since she's Canadian, she totally has the uncontrollable hots for any guy who fights. _

Plausibility: _Well, it's not exactly a lie but she's amazed that no-one saw through the over-the-top revert-igo act she just pulled. She even thought she'd covered her bases by feigning interest in all the guys equally but now she realises how obvious she was being. She swears that Marshall ruined it for her deliberately._

Result: _Super busted._

Plan C: _Hmmm…_

She wants to hurt Marshall right now for his death blow to Plan B but, you know, Ted was right. Marshall is kind-of scary. Like a bear that looks cuddly till you poke it and you realise those cute, seemingly-soft paws actually have huge claws attached to them.

Plus, if Marshall called slut for her sleeping with _Mitch_, then what in the hell would he call her if she slept with Barney again?

So, Plan C is what exactly?

She mentally goes through Lily's list of "Fifty reasons to have sex" but none of those are good enough. None of those are _nearly_ good enough to give her the excuse she needs, or that she _will_ need if (when) she has to explain this to Ted and the others.

So, Barney's standing at the bar, surrounded by _three_ (count 'em) women. She wonders vaguely if he has some kind of trophy for riding the, what would it be, the _quad bike_? Perhaps he has a golden chalice or something? Barney does that lip curl thing and in that moment it's almost as if she's back in her bedroom, back to that night with him inside her and it's feeling so good because he's teased her for, like, _hours_…

She shakes herself and Lily sits down heavily on the bench opposite her. "Hey!" Lily greets her happily and Robin takes the opportunity to catch up with her friend without the guys crowding them.

"So, how are things going with Ted?" Lily asks her, an evil glint in her eye.

"Oh, fine," Robin replies, until she catches a brief snippet of couple-telepathy and realises that Lily's implying something. "Hey, no. Don't even go there."

Lily shrugs with a grin. "Only one "no"? Well, that's a relief. You really are over him, then?"

Robin gave her a bemused look. "Ted? Of course. There's nothing between us. Well…" She thinks about it. "Perhaps there is. I'm still fond of him and there's some sort of bond. But I really don't want to even go there." No matter how desperate I am, she continues in her mind. Weird, though, how she's completely uninterested in hooking up with Ted (who at least would be understandable in a "friends-with-benefits" way) but instead she's jones-ing on Barney like he's the last pair of Markitas on the rack.

"Hmm…" She muses.

"You got someone else in mind?" Lily enquires. Damn this telepathy!

"Nah. But you were right when you said that I need to get out there, try and find someone a little bit more serious than _Mitch_!"

Lily laughs along with her. "Perhaps you should go out with Barney-" She begins and Robin tries not to choke on her beer before she manages to process the rest of the sentence. "-and get him to be your wingman?" Lily takes a swig of her own drink, looking pretty innocent. "After all, as much crap as Barney talks, he does seem to be fairly successful with Ted. I bet he could find a few guys for you."

The thought seems strange to her and gives her this twisty-turn-y feeling inside that she doesn't want to think about so she just nods calmly as if she's considering it. "You know, I did set him up with this super-hot chick pretty recently so he does owe me one. Maybe, Lily. That's not a bad idea."

But Lily just laughs. "Jeez, Robin, you really must be desperate.

Robin looks rueful. "Yeah, I guess I really must be."

*--*--*

Plan C: _Go out bro-ing with him and wait for him to come on to her. _

Plausibility: _Low. She's always said no in the past and she'd forgotten than he'd stopped the sleazebag routine with her a long time ago. They spent a fun evening playing Laser tag and then having a Kurosawa marathon with Ted. Barney tells her he scored three phone numbers in the waiting room after Laser tag due to the "bored, lonely Mom/housewife syndrome creating so many cougars these days"…_

Result: _Non-starter._

*--*--*

It was just unfair how many bimbos got to have sex with him. After all, she could bimbo with the best of them, couldn't she? She could Woo. She'd _proved_ that she could Woo. She'd even caught him checking out her ass while she'd Woo'd. Perhaps that was the thing. Perhaps she had to embrace her inner hoe-bag for a while.

Plan D: _Slut up!_

Plausibility: _Medium. She said she was going on a date and wore a skirt so short that she was practically getting a gynaecological exam from every guy in the bar. Barney's eyes were on stalks the whole time but with Ted, Marshall and Lily watching her, she was cock-blocked. She couldn't take it any further. She didn't even feel like she could let her bare leg touch him when they sat next to each other in the booth. It was horrible. But it made everyone laugh that he disengaged from the conversation entirely and just stared at her all evening. On the plus side, she'd got six numbers that night. Later, when she'd changed and he'd stopped looking at her like she was dinner, she'd asked him about all those 70s and 80s sitcom titles he kept spouting that she'd never heard of. He'd given her an odd look and she'd backed off. _

Result: _Great way to attract guys but not necessarily the right guy._

Hold on - Barney was the _right guy_? Robin leans forward and bangs her head against the kitchen counter-top. Things were getting really, really bad.


	2. Chapter 2

She can do this. She can _totally_ do this. All she has to do is channel her younger self, the fearless Robin who'd battled away on stories at the Vancouver Sun for three years before getting her big break in the big apple. She used to be so tenacious! She'd never let anyone beat her down. Where did it all go wrong?

"So how did it go?" Lily asks her, seeing that her friend was pre-occupied.

"Say what?"

"Your evening Bro-ing out and about?" She grins. "With Barney?"

Robin giggles then covers her mouth. Then she realises what she's doing and she uncovers her mouth.

"You would _so_ suck at poker, Robin. You didn't sleep with him again?"

"N-no!" She stammers. "No, no, _no_, it's Barney, Lily! Absolutely no!"

"Absolutely no?" Lily raises an eyebrow.

Robin hopes to god she isn't blushing. "We played Laser tag and then went back to the apartment. Ted was there!" Oh god, could she _be_ more obvious?

Lily's impersonation of the cat that had swallowed the cream is flawless. "He's over there at the bar if you wanna go talk to him."

"W-who?" Robin asks, biting back the giggle this time.

Lily rolls her eyes.

"Lily…" Robin pleads, helplessly. "I can't! It's _Barney_!"

But her friend only nods and waves her hand. "And he's standing at the bar."

*--*--*

Plan E: _Lull him into a false sense of security, then pounce._

Plausibility factor: _Oh god. It's all Lily's fault. No one's ever going to believe it. _

Result: _The jury's out._

*--*--*

"How do you do it, Barney?" She asks him, exasperated.

He turns to look at her with a quizzical expression. "Do what? Continue to be more awesome each day? This is a question I'm often asked-"

She cuts him off before he has time to switch into oratory mode. "How do you just sleep with all those girls and it never bothers you that you don't make any kind of connection. You just hook up once and never see them again."

Barney looks horrified. "That's absolutely not true."

Robin gives him a dubious look.

"There are several reasons to embark on a more meaningful connection with a chick than a simple one-night-stand…"

She rolls her eyes. Here he goes, she thinks.

He counts off his reasons on his fingers. "Firstly, the booty call. These are the girls who I know can take a repeat performance of my awesome without asking too many questions or getting clingy."

"And by clingy, you mean…?" At least this conversation might give her the dose of anti-Barney that she needs.

"I mean, wanting me to stay for more than five minutes after we've finished doing it. Secondly," He grins, moving on before she protests, "there's the _conquest_." He pronounces the word as if it's deliciously dirty. "I can spend months on one woman. And you want a meaningful connection? Some of these chicks expect me to actually propose before they'll bang me-"

Robin gets angry with him. "Will you just stop it? Would you just talk to me like a regular person for once?"

This brings him up short and his expression crumples, all the bravado draining out of him so that he suddenly looks ten years younger. Even his voice is pitched a fraction higher when he speaks. "Aw, Robin! What's wrong?"

She sighs heavily and he buys her two fingers of scotch.

"I don't know…" She says, suddenly needing to talk. "I just don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life. I wish I could switch these feelings off and just immerse myself in some hedonistic lifestyle, you know, like _you_ do?"

He turns his tumbler slowly in his fingers so that it catches the light.

"You think you can turn feelings off?" His tone is wistful and for just one tiny moment, she feels like he's shown her something.

"Maybe. That's why I wanted your advice."

He rolls his eyes and she knows what he's thinking. He's crafting a sleazy comeback. But she doesn't want a joke to break the tension. She really needs him, she realises, in a way that's completely outside this stupid, persistent need to sleep with him.

"Proper advice, Barney. You're the one who's always so fearless, who got me to go for that job in Japan even when I was balking at the idea of it. You're always the one who's there when I can't talk to anyone else." She swallows, realising how true this is. She gets something from Barney that she could never get from Lily.

"My advice," He says, staring at his drink with a tiny, secret smile, "is not to be so hard on yourself. Take a holiday from all the crap for a couple of weeks. Don't push too hard. That's what you've been doing, Scherbatsky, beating yourself up and forcing yourself into a place that doesn't come naturally. As lame as it sounds, you need to find yourself again."

She laughs because he sounds so sincere but she knows he's right.

"Thanks Barney," She says and smiles, already feeling her body relax a little, the tension she didn't even know was there starting to drain out of her. "That was actually pretty helpful."

He grins and finally meets her eye. "Of course, lots of sex also helps."

*--*--*

Oh god.

Oh god, the guilt this time was _so_ much worse.

Robin walks back into the main bar feeling horrible and sick to her gut. This _really_ wasn't how she'd imagined it going down.

If she could have genuinely seen a way to sleep with Barney again, she'd definitely have not planned it to be that way. Not in a million years…

*--*--*

**Not** Plan F: _A quicky in the bathroom stalls of their favourite bar_

Plausibility: _No one would ever believe it. Heck, even she still didn't believe it. She's always been a little annoyed when people treat Barney like he's just a penis-on-legs but wasn't that what she'd just done?_

Result: _She's pretty sure she's just ruined a wonderful friendship. _

*--*--*

Last time they did it, he was all twitchy and nervous but this time he was just… blank. The sex itself had been hot (okay, mind-blowing - she didn't think it was possible to even do that in such a confined space) but the after-sex-silence had just been painful. How quickly they'd closed down on each other! She would have offered to buy him a drink but it seemed too weird somehow. When they'd straightened their clothing and found her panties (how did they get _there_?) they'd found that they couldn't look each other in the eye. She'd flailed around by the bar for a few minutes, waiting to get served and the next time she'd looked around he'd disappeared.

Jesus, this was just so _wrong_. Why on earth had she thought this could ever go well?

She's just doodling on a napkin (Plan G: There is no plan G) when Lily plonks down on to the seat beside her.

"So, what's happening?" Her friend asks. "Tell me all about your amazing single life because, with Marshall's new job, that's about the only action this girl's getting today."

Robin laughs but she feels like she's on the edge of tears.

"Hey, honey!" Lily immediately sees that something's really wrong and wraps her arm around Robin's shoulders, pulling her in for a hug. Robin is always struck by how comforting it feels when Lily hugs her. Despite everything she's said before about not having kids, she just knows that Lily will make an incredible Mom someday.

"Barney," Robin blurts, trying not to cry. It'll ruin her makeup. Oh, god, her makeup! She didn't even look in the mirror after-

She gulps. Has she got sex makeup smudge? He's probably covered in lipstick as well… and that thought shouldn't be anywhere near as damned erotic as it seems to be right now…

Robin lets out a sob.

"Barney?" Lily's voice is hard-edged. "Has he upset you honey?"

Robin puts her head in both her hands and makes a non-committal moan.

"Look, sweetie… I know it sounds weird. But he's idolised you for, like, _ever_! Is it such a stretch to imagine that, underneath all that Armani and dating laws and joking around, the guy actually has feelings too?"

Behind her hands, Robin frowns.

"I told him to tell you months ago", Lily continues, "but he keeps pushing it down and trying to turn those real, human feelings into some kind of crusade to get you in the sack again. He's just confused. He needs someone to talk to."

Robin thinks she's about to throw up.

Lily's voice sounds eager "What did he say though? I bet he explained it all really badly, didn't he? If you only knew how much he's been agonising about this, how many times he's called me in the middle of the night having a panic attack…" Lily ground to a halt, suddenly realising that she was upholding both sides of this conversation. "Honey? Are you okay?"

Robin looks up, her eyes feeling all sticky and itchy. "I just had sex with Barney in a bathroom stall."

"What?"

*--*--*

This is worse. Oh god, this is so much worse.

Now she can't even sit next to him at the booth any more and all she can think about (literally _all_ she can think about) is ripping open the buttons of his white shirt and running her tongue over his abs and through that tiny tuft of hair in the centre of his chest…

Robin reaches out for her beer at the exact same moment as he does. Their fingers touch, so of course she has a minor-freakout and knocks over both bottles. The beer cascades through the air, an arc of amber liquid that splatters comically all over the front of his suit.

He stands up immediately, face like thunder and screams a theatrical "Nooooooooo!", like he's that guy out of Platoon or something and he clutches the front of his body like he's been shot.

"That's it, Scherbatsky. I'm sending YOU the dry cleaning bill for this!" His voice gets really high pitched as he pushes past Ted and yells, "Who am I kidding? It's ruined! It's RUINED!"

Robin sits there and tries _not_ to look at Lily, who's being super-obvious with all her little winks and nudges, or Marshall, who's got this strange, child-like smile plastered across his face.

Ted's quiet. Like he's sulking.

After a moment of silence, she's the one to break it. "Okay, okay. We had sex again. Me and Barney-"

Ted interrupts: "actually, to be grammatically correct, that would be Barney and I", but she ignores him.

"What's the big deal? We did it. It's forgotten. We can move on."

"You just keep telling yourself that, sweetie!" Lily says, grinning.

"Lily, I know what you're doing and it won't work. Barney doesn't have any feelings for me and I haven't got any for him. It's just sex. We're bros. It's bro-sex. He'll probably be adding a new article to his bro-code as we speak."

"God, I hope not!" Ted says.

"Definitely dude," Marshall agrees and they fist-bump.

Robin sighs.

"Seriously," Ted says, finally. "I don't know what's going on with the two of you, but this afternoon, Barney comes into my office and offers me a million, yes, that's right, a _million_ dollars if he can take you out on a date this weekend." He laughs. "I told him that I didn't own you and he looked at me as if I was a crazy person and said-

'Ted, I know that! I'm not a monster. I just want you to put in a good word for me.'"

Ted continues to tell the story, about how Barney was acting like someone with Tourettes the whole time and how it had all come out that he'd nailed Robin again. Apparently he'd told Ted months ago that he wanted have sex with her and Ted had even bet him fifty dollars that, well, she'd not agree to that in a million years, even if she was really, really drunk! But Barney had seemed pretty insistant that he needed Ted's approval because the last thing he wanted to do was hurt him, now that they were brothers and all.

"Did everyone know about Barney's… _thing_… for me, but me?" Robin asks, bemused. How could he keep something this big from her? How could her friends keep a secret like that? She feels a little hurt and a lot betrayed. "Of all the sleazy, screwed up-"

Lily pats her arm. "Robin, I think the question here is to work out what _you_ feel about him. After all, it takes two to do the horizontal cha cha, honey." Lily grins. "Or in your case, the bathroom stall boogie!"

Yeah, Robin realises. Of course it did. It was all her fault then, was it? She knows that if she doesn't watch out, these feelings could quickly turn into simmering anger and it wasn't Lily who she needed to yell at.

"That's it, I'm going to find him." She says.

"You go, girl!" Lily chirps, delightedly.

"I'm not going to have _sex_ with him again, Lily. We're just going to talk!"

Lily laughs as she squeezs past her in the booth. "Yeah, sure. And when you _do_ have sex with him again, remember, I want all the details!"

Marshall gives her a "hey!" and they start squabbling about his long hours at work and for a moment Robin just wants to run back to the booth and join in with their conversation because it's safe and normal and not at all terrifying.

But Robin Scherbatsky isn't a coward and she walks out of McLaren's with her head held high. She spends the whole cab ride over to his place trying to come up with a new plan.

*--*--*

Plan H: _Tell him how she feels._

Plausibility: _So lame. But she's pretty sure that the others already know and, in fact, knew before she did._

Result: _A big fat mess. Probably. _

*--*--*

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asks him.

They are sitting on his leather couch and she's turned towards him while he leans back, not looking at her. He's silent for a moment but when he replies, he at least has the decency to finally meet her eye. "If I'd told you that I cared about you, you'd never have taken me seriously." He bites his lip and she hates that he looks so vulnerable. She can see him struggling with each word like he's wrestling a lion. "You don't take me seriously."

She considers this. "Sometimes I do!" She knows he wants more from her, wants to know how _she_ feels but she's never been very good at this.

Neither has he though, so he leans forward to silence her with a kiss and, god... the way his lips feel against hers... if he could put that kiss into words he'd be reciting love poetry right now…

She pushes him away and he looks genuinely hurt. She realises how hard it is for him to open up like this. All that talk about him being the brave one and taking chances and she's never seen before just quite how safe he always plays it.

And because she's no poet, she pulls him back in to continue the kiss as though it's the conversation they need to have and she's just told him something really important.

He doesn't pull away and, even though it's suddenly really hard to breathe and it feels like her heart's constricted, she can't seem to break away. Obviously they _really_ needed to talk.

Finally, his lips slip away from hers.

"You didn't kiss me at McLaren's," he says, his voice husky. His hand is still pressing into the small of her back and feels warm and comforting.

"That's because I thought I only wanted sex…", she says, wondering quite what the words mean.

He seems to get what she means because he grins with the most cheekily inviting expression and she'd be a fool not to kiss him again.

*--*--*

Plan I: ("'Plan I'? Really Scherbatsky, call it 'Plan India'. Have you learned nothing from all those blood'n'guts films you watch? Better still, Plan Skywalker!") _Tie him up and gag him, so I don't have to listen to him crowing all the time._ ("Kinky. Nice!")

Plausibility: _I'm pretty sure I've got my gun somewhere. If he gets frisky, we'll play a game I like to call "shoot Barney Stinson in the balls"._ ("Did I say I was going to resist? Come on!")

Result: _Give me ten minutes and I'll report back._ ("Robin, ten minutes? That's an insult. We'll be going for at least fourty-five…")


	3. Afterburn part 1

"That's not the only thing that's been IN Robin." Barney lets out a dirty laugh and raises his hand high in the air. "Am I right?"

The rest of them groan but Robin slaps his palm. After all, he _is_ right!

"So, more beer?" Barney asks them. "I know it's getting late, but..?" They all agree, a little too enthusiastically, and Barney heads for the bar. He's paying for drinks again, Robin realises. Weird. Did he always pay for their drinks a lot? Had she just never noticed that before? She's musing on this while Lily and Marshall begin to speculate on how long they should stick around, given that they've got a long cab-ride home to deal with.

"Guys, please stay for one more?" Robin pleads. "After all, this is kind of a celebration…?" Marshall and Ted grin and start making dude-observations about the length of a new relationship while Lily, sitting next to her, nudges Robin in the ribs.

"Honey," Lily says under her breath, "I hate to say this but your boy is _playing_." She un-subtly points towards the bar.

Robin frowns as Barney turns his trademark pinball smile on some busty blonde and the girl laughs loudly (Sheesh!) and plays with her hair. While Barney talks to Carl, Robin sees that the girl is watching him and when he turns back to her, she reaches out to play with his hand.

"It's… not... like we're exclusive…" She says, uncertainly.

"You mean, you haven't even talked about it?" Marshall asks her, looking concerned. "I'd have thought that would be the _first_ thing that would come up, you know, him being Barney."

Robin shook her head. She hadn't even_ thought_ about it. These last few days had been all about them hanging together, talking about nothing and having a great deal of (incredibly hot!) sex. She hasn't thought once about seeing other guys. But now she realises that it was a kind of accidental monogamy rather than the real thing.

"Well," She says, defensively, "It's not like we _needed_ to talk about it. After all, neither of us are after anything serious. It's kind of a great thing to know that we're not putting any pressure on each other." But deep inside her a little voice keeps nudging, that little tinge of jealousy that she'd felt so rarely that it was hard to even identify it:

She should be enough woman for him. And clearly she isn't.

*--*--*

Barney sits down at the table and begins pouring their beers. He feels weirdly light-headed and can't stop smiling like some kind of brainless idiot. But if this is love then… bring it on, dude!

He notices the empty space in front of him. "Uh, where's Robin?" He asks innocently.

Lily rolls her eyes. "She saw your action over there," Lily pokes her thumb in the direction of the bar, "And I guess she didn't want to stick around while you drool over some other girl's boobs." Lily tilts her head and there are sparks in her eyes.

Barney is about to protest when Lily kicks him under the table. "Barney! I told you about bimbos, like, how many times? If you don't want to screw this up with Robin…!"

"Ow! Lily!"

"Hey!" Marshall interjects, putting up his hands defensively. "To be fair, Lil, Robin did say that they weren't exclusive. She seemed okay with it. She said to say that she's just tired."

Lily laughs. "_Okay_ with it? Marshall, oh Marshall! Sometimes I wonder what you've been thinking all these years. You really don't understand women at all, do you?" She crosses her arms angrily.

Ted shrugs. "Look, Barney, I'm not saying that Robin's pissed with you, but you two should probably at least talk about it? I mean, if you're going to be going around picking up girls in front of her? It's just a little insensitive, you know?"

Barney's mouth is still open but he can't seem to make one word of protest. That's just not the way it had happened…

*--*--*

Five minutes ago…

"You look happy!" Someone said, standing next to him, nudging his elbow.

Barney sighed. "I am." He grinned widely and turned around but it was just some chick he didn't recognise. He vaguely checked out her boobs and then this weird wave of contentment settled over him. "The girl I'm totally in love with has finally realised that she's in love with me too!", he replied. He knew he was being goofy but who was he to fight it?

The boob-chick laughed and Carl rolled his eyes. Barney couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit of anger. But, hey… he always knew that this would happen. People had made assumptions about him his whole life and they'd continue to think what they liked, no matter how he actually behaved. Of course Carl thought this was some kind of angle, some kind of pick-up line.

"That's so cool. Congratulations!" The boob-chick was saying ask, trying to grab his hand as he turned back to Carl and ordered a pitcher of beer.

"Yeah, it's _awesome_…" He said, meeting Carl's eye. "It's Robin," He mouthed.

Carl at least had the decency to look surprised.

"Way to go!" The bartender replied with a laugh. "In that case, the beer's on the house."

Barney got what he thought was a well-deserved high five.

*--*--*

It isn't that Robin exactly wants Barney to change. She kind of likes the way he is - all the crude jokes and the banter and even his constant horn-dog act and over-the-top flirting (but mainly because she knows how fake that all is).

It isn't that Robin wants to be exclusive either but what she really doesn't want this weird feeling of jealousy.

Boy, this is going to be far more difficult than she'd ever realised.

Is this thing with Barney just a really horrible mistake?

She strips off her skirt and blouse and pulls on sweat pants and a vest instead. It feels strange to be alone in her own bedroom again after spending three days at Barney's place. Not that this was really her bedroom; she'd always think of it as Marshall and Lily's bedroom, she realised with a flutter of nostalgia. And, after all, this arragement was temporary. She wasn't exactly planning to live with Ted for long.

What then? Move in with Barney?

Where in the hell had that thought come from?

Oh crap. They really did need to talk. _Properly_ this time and not the kind of talking that's done by proxy when sticking their tongue's down each other's throats (although that seemed to work pretty well for them so far). Nope, they need to set up some ground rules, she guesses.

It is a little sad though. Those three days she's just spent with him, she'd kind of got lulled by the way he was always staring at her and the way he smiled when she noticed he was staring. She'd felt like the absolute centre of his universe.

But perhaps he makes all the girls feel like that. Perhaps that's why he's so successful with women?

Perhaps he's making that busty blonde chick at the bar feel like that right now?

This time, it isn't only a tiny niggle of jealousy that flares inside her.


	4. Afterburn part 2

Afterburn - Part Two

He's not angry, he tells himself. He's not. It's just… he expected more of Robin. He stalks back to the bar, leaving his friends to their beer and he orders a martini. Boob-chick is still there but talking to her now would make him feel brittle so he downs his drink in one and heads out, telling himself that he needs some strange.

After all, three days with the same chick cannot be healthy.

He repeats this mantra in his head, drowning out all those fluffy damn feelings he'd got caught up in earlier.

Damn Scherbatsky. She's almost given him a terminal dose of sappy emotion this time.

It's not until he gets out of the cab and the cold air hits him that Barney realises that everything he's been thinking for the last twenty minutes is complete bull crap.

*--*--*

The trouble is, Robin realises, as she goes for a job interview the next day, the trouble is that she's always been the one who's pulled back in relationships, the one who's played it cool. She's the one who's been the heartbreaker. It's kind of strange to think that Barney has absolutely no expectations of her. It's like flying on the high trapeze without a safety net and it gives her fluttery feelings in her stomach. Still, when she gets his text just before her interview saying "You don't need luck because you're awesome!", she can't help but smile.

Yeah, now a lot of things about him were starting to make sense.

It's strange to have to re-evaluate the last few months and she knows she's only scratched the surface. Robin can't quite help but question what this all means. Three days of amazing sex doesn't make Barney her boyfriend? Does it? Doesn't it?

A few seconds later, just as her hand is on the revolving door and she's about to step through into the lobby of the trendy downtown media company, she gets a second text from him: "Pick you up at six for celebrations and debauchery."

She smirks. Really, that's the sort of thing he always says. Nothing has changed there. But deep down she admits to herself that she always got those swirl-y feeings inside whenever he flirted with her. So, no, nothing has changed.

If she keeps telling herself that it might actually be true.

*--*--*

He takes the day off work so he can go and see James and Tom. This kind of news has to be delivered in person.

"So, uh, Robin and I hooked up again," He says casually, sitting on their living room floor while and bouncing Sam up and down on his lap. He kind-of wants to text Robin again. She has that interview thing today and, unless she really screws things up, she'll get the job. He knows exactly how many weeks she has left before she loses her green card and that she's running out of options. What's she gonna do? Marry someone? He shudders at the very idea.

James turns around from where he's lounging on the sofa, one arm draped casually over Tom's shoulder and gapes at his brother. "You and _Robin_? Hey, man! That's great! So, you finally get her out of your system?" James says all this with an OTT wink and obligatory accompanying leer. Barney rolls his eyes.

"Nope."

"Then it's _true love_?" James and Tom share a glance and Barney bristles. He hates it when James baits him. This is going to be like when he was sixteen all over again, isn't it? James's voice is practically dripping with implication.

"Nope," Barney answers, simply.

James snorts. "Barney, you're more of a dog than I was. Seriously, what up?"

Barney slowly lowers Sam on to his lap. "Look, there's just all these _expectations_, you know? It's like, either you have to marry and have kids, or you're single and you sleep around. There's no middle ground. Whatever happened to the simple, open relationship."

"You really want an open relationship? You want Robin sleeping with other dudes?" James asks him.

Barney bows his head, turning his attention back to his nephew and ignoring his brother's teasing.

"Don't sulk." James says, untangling himself from Tom to coming over to sit beside his brother. "I haven't seen you acting like this in years. You gotta admit, it does sound like you've rushed into this thing with Robin, if you don't really know what you want from out of it."

"It's not about what I want," Barney blurts and realises that this is true. It's never been about what _he_ wants, which is why he waited so many months and had never said anything to a soul other than Lily. He'd never have done anything if she hadn't practically dragged him off to the bathroom in McLaren's.

(Thank god she did!)

Okay, he was confident that she was still attracted to him (hello?) and kind-of liked him as a Bro, but he still didn't really know what she wanted from him.

Boy, tonight was going to be tough. But if there was one thing that Barney Stinson didn't do, it was to run from a challenge.

*--*--*

Robin gets to the bar a little early and, this not being McLaren's, she finds herself getting a table and sitting alone, awkwardly toying with her phone. Of course, what she should really be doing is trying to organise her thoughts.

There's some guy at the bar; six foot four, hugely muscular and ruggedly handsome, like the guys back home used to be. She likes what she sees but she's careful not to be caught staring at him. It's weird… when she thinks about Barney, on the face of it he's _really_ not her type.

Of course, there were a thousand little things about Barney that she does likes: The way he tilts his head to the side whenever he's being smug, the way he grins like a six year old when he's delighted by something, or the way he laughs that dirty laugh, even at his own jokes. But when Barney is still, when he's asleep (which is pretty much the only time he isn't absurdly animated) Robin notices how fragile he really is. Barney isn't so much handsome as _pretty_ - even (and she has kind-of a hard time even _thinking_ the word in relation to him) _angelic_. It's just that something about him cancels that out when he's awake. It's confusing and slightly hypnotic. One night, she'd just laid there and just watched him for an hour before falling asleep.

Robin shook herself. At least the interview had gone okay, so she's feeling relaxed and the large glass of red wine she's drinking is going a long way to soothing the troubled waters of her psyche. Robin knows she's basically got the job if she wants it, which is kind of nice. But she's not too sure if she should play it cool and finds herself wanting Barney's advice. Still, he'll be there any second.

The guy at the bar catches her eyes. He's the kind of guy who makes her go a little weak inside. It's her heritage - she's helpless against it! In her hometown, if a guy looks like he can fell a tree, he's probably going to get a girlfriend real easily.

Barney doesn't look like he can fell a tree. But he looks like he could pay someone to bulldozer the entire forest.

*--*--

Barney unwinds his scarf as he enters the bar, shrugging off his heavy winter coat, his eyes scanning the place for Robin. She's sitting at a table, talking to some huge dude who looks too comically Neanderthal to be sat in such refined surroundings. Barney decides to hang back and let Robin take the lead. If she wants to hook up with this guy then so be it. Yeah, it hurts him a little but it's not like he's not used to rejection.

(Especially from her.)

Eventually, she heads for the bar, leaving the guy at the table. Barney doesn't turn, make eye contact or acknowledge her in any way but out of the corner of his mouth he says "How do you want to play this?"

He smiles and looks up. In the bar mirror he can see his own expression reflected in hers. Robin grins as she orders two beers.

"I don't think he'll last long. If you stick around, you can be my wingman?"

Ouch. That hurts. She's just got this power both to unravel and confuse him. And he knows that what he _should_ be thinking about right now is how to score with one of the hot chicks dotted around the bar, not be mooning over Robin.

Something Ted once said suddenly comes back to haunt him. It's all a game. You just have to play the game. And, boy, he's played the game often enough to know how every kind of seduction is supposed to work. Trouble is, he's lost the knack of knowing what is real emotion and what's faked. For the first time in years he might actually _feel_ something for a woman. He doesn't want to lose that tiny thread amongst a string of meaningless sex.

But maybe Robin does? Maybe Robin's at the other end of that journey - wanting nothing more than to stretch her wings and fly?

Barney sighs inwardly and says, "I'll stick around." He's being pathetic, probably. He knows that she's caught him. That thing is happening that he swore he would never let happen again.

Probably.

How about definitely?

Because it suddenly hits him that he really is properly, genuinely and horribly in love with her.

*--*--*

There's a string of guys who hit on her throughout the night. Robin goes through the motions just as she's supposed to but the whole time she's somehow aware of Barney, like he's a spinning sun over at the bar, pulling her slowly in. Even though he doesn't put any pressure on her and she even finds him talking to other people whenever she goes back to the bar. Somehow Robin starts to wish he would put pressure on her. She's finding that she quickly loses patience with the corny lines and obvious lies that all these guys are using on her. They just don't have any finesse. No imagination. They aren't… him.

What she really wants, Robin realises, is to be properly seduced. It's something that she and Barney never really did. They just came together and connected and then it was all so _physical_. She's kind of sad that she missed the build-up part.

Another guy approaches her table and she's about to tell him to take a hike but then her eye catches his silhouette and she realises that it's _him_.

"Is this seat taken?" Barney asks, smooth as honey, like he's a stranger trying to pick her up but doesn't want to be too obvious about it.

She smiles at him, liking this gentler side to him, and shakes her head. He sits down and,taking her cue, he gives her a playful smile.

"Hi." He says. "I'm Barnaby."

She almost laughs out loud at this but catches herself just in time. Even so, her lips twitch into a smirk before she pulls herself together and shrugs on her best cool-and-aloof city-sophisticate persona.

"Robin," she says, holding out her hand. "Pleased to meet you."

He takes it and holds her fingers lightly for a moment before bending his head to kiss her knuckles, his breath ghosting across her fingers. It tingles and she finds herself relaxing, a warm glow spreading up her arm across her torso and into her belly. Damn him, but doesn't she just want to jump right back into bed with him right now? But this is what he does well, she supposes. He's had enough practice. He's just going through the motions.

Almost as if he's reading her mind, Barney pulls back, smiling uncertainly as if he's not sure that he's gone too far. And that's better, somehow. She likes this little chink of self-doubt because it's new and different and she's not seen this side of him before.

Robin's not sure how this relationship is going to work and it's kind of comforting to know that he isn't either.

She smiles, realising that she's thought the word "relationship" in reference to her and Barney Stinson and it isn't totally freaking her out.

"What's up?" He asks her, as if he's worried that she's making fun of him in some way.

Grinning reassuringly, she says. "Nothing… It's just… I'm having a really good day."

He tilts his head and gives her a lopsided smirk. "Oh really? Why don't you tell me all about it?"

Robin leans forward, one finger playing absently with her hair and begins to tell him about the job interview she'd had that day, her doubts and fears and how much the singles scene in New York sucks.

*--*--*

She goes home with him (of course) and leans against him in the cab, making him wish it wasn't winter and he could _feel_ her, instead of just being aware of the pressure of her body against the thick wool of his coat. He says something to that effect and she gives him a secret smile. God, he wishes he could read her better. With every hour she seems to become more and more of a mystery to him. He guesses that it's his own feelings, clouding his judgement. He's always been better with women when he's totally focussing on them.

Inside his apartment she asks him to sit down on a chair in his living room and disappears into the bedroom. His heart beats a little harder as she returns and she wraps a silk handkerchief around his eyes. His world contracts into sensation - the lump in his throat as her hands brush over his shoulder and encourage him to remove his suit jacket, the way his stomach turns to jelly as he can hear the whisper of her clothing hitting the floor. All he can see is a purple blur and still everything feels warm and erotic and the scent of her perfume permeates every breath he takes.

She stands in front of him and lifts his hands, encouraging him to touch her. It's intimate, he thinks, in a way that a lap dance at a strip club can never be. It saddens him to think how hollow his life has been and it scares him even more to wonder how he'll ever be able to go back to the old Barney if (when?) she gets bored and leaves him.

"Hey…?" She whispers, as her fingers skim the swell of her naked breasts and sweep around to the small of her back. "Hey, are you okay?"

He wants to tell her how scared he is and yet how _sure_ he is all at the same time. He wants to sing her love songs and kiss every inch of her body and somehow try and persuade her that he's a better bet than he know he is. He wants to do all these things but knows that it's the surest way to scare her off.

He feels her soft hair brush over the back of his hand as she sits down on top of him, wrapping her long legs around his waist. He stifles a moan because he's so hard and she's doing a little shimmy with her hips that is driving him crazy.

"Talk to me, Barney," she says because she's _evil_. He gulps.

"I- I-," he stutters as she begins to nuzzle his neck. "Robin… please… you're killing me, here!"

She pulls away slightly and rips the silk away from his face. She looks confused and angry.

"I'm- I'm sorry," he says. Damn!

She clambers off him and stands up (god, she looks glorious, her body is just incredible…) and crosses her arms. "Barney… I think that we're in a relationship…" She says, a little crease appearing between her eyebrows. Then she laughs. "Which is what's getting in the way of the hot sex we should be having right now."

But he can't help but beam. "Is that a bad thing?"

"The lack of hot sex?", she asks, incredulously.

"The relationship…", he chuckles, knowing that she's deliberately playing dumb.

"It doesn't have to be."

"It's kind-of great," he says, grinning.

"Barney, stop staring at my boobs."

"Robin, I can't help it. They're right in my eyeline."

She settles back on top of him again and he can feel every inch of her through the thin material of his suit pants and shirt.

"At some point, we'll have to talk about this," he manages, before his brain shuts down.

"Sex first, talk second," she says, her lips locking on to his.

And who is he to argue?


End file.
